"Come on," she said into the wind. "Come on, little piggie!"
The car pulled up alongside her and hung there, both of them doing about seventy on the backwoods road. Mary saw no police or FBI markings, and she couldn't see the driver's face either. But suddenly the car whipped to the right, and there was a crash of metal as it slammed against the van. The wheel shuddered. Mary shouted a curse and the van veered toward the right shoulder. She fought its weight, the dark woods reaching out to embrace her and Drummer. Mary got the van back up onto the road again, and again the big car slammed into her side, trying to butt her off the pavement like an enraged bull. The car hit her a third time, and sparks flew into the air as pieces of metal ground together. The van was shoved sideways, the wheel trying to tear itself out of Mary's grip. She looked to her left, saw the passenger's window going down, a smooth electric slide. The car pulled up, its driver almost even with her. There was a loud crack, a flare of fire, and something metal clattered in the back of the van.
Bullet, Mary realized. Handgun. Son of a bitch was shooting at her.
It dawned on her, quite suddenly, that whoever was in the big Buick was the bastard who'd killed Edward. This wasn't exactly pig procedure. The fucker was trying to kill her, that much was certain.
She hit the accelerator again, whipping past a sign that read I-94, 2 MI. The Buick stayed abreast. Another crack and fire flare, and she heard the whine of the slug ricocheting inside the van. The Buick remained with her, touching eighty miles an hour. Mary held on to the wheel with one hand and fired a shot at the car. The bullet didn't hit, but the Buick backed off a few yards. Then it lunged forward and crashed into the van's side again, shoving the van toward the shoulder. Mary fired once more, trying to hit the Buick's engine. The van's tires slipped on loose gravel, the vehicle's rear end fishtailing. Two seconds passed in which Mary thought the van was going over, but then the tires found pavement again and the scream died behind Mary's teeth. The Buick, its right side battered and scraped, started to pull up even with her. Mary's foot was already on the floor, the van at the limit of its power. The Buick was coming, its long, scarred snout easing up. Mary dropped the Colt, reached into her shoulder bag, and brought out the Compact Magnum.
Before she could get off a shot, the BMW that had come up from behind veered into the left lane and slammed into the Buick's rear fender. The collision jarred the finger that was squeezing a pistol's trigger, and the bullet whacked into the van's side seven inches behind Mary Terror's skull.
Mary fired downward with the Magnum, the noise explosive and the kick thrumming through her forearm and shoulder. The Buick's right front tire popped, and as the driver stomped on the brake Laura jerked the BMW's wheel to the right and cleared the Buick by half a foot, pulling her front fender right up behind the speeding van. The Buick, its tire shredding to pieces, went across the left lane and down a knoll into a copse of trees and bushes.
"Back off! Back off!" Didi was shouting, and Laura hit her brakes just as Mary did the same. Fenders clanged together like swords. Laura veered to the left, saw the interstate's ramp just ahead. And then Mary Terror was swinging the van up onto it, black smoke gouting from the exhaust. I-94 WEST, the sign said. Mary swerved off the ramp onto the highway, reached down, and righted Drummer's bassinet. He was still wailing, but he would have to cry himself out. She glanced into the rearview mirror, saw the BMW about fifty yards behind, cutting its speed. She cut hers, too, down to about sixty. Whoever was in the Buick would have to change the tire, and by that time she'd be long gone.
But Laura Clayborne was in the car behind her. Maybe Bedelia was with her. Traitor, she thought. A bullet wasn't enough for her, she should be slit open and gutted for the crows, like the lowest kind of roadkill.
The BMW kept its distance. Mary returned the Magnum to her shoulder bag. She was trembling, but she'd shake it off soon enough. At this time of the morning the interstate was almost empty, just a few trucks hauling freight. Mary began to relax, but her gaze kept ticking to the BM Ws headlights. Should've blown out the tires when I had the chance, she thought. Why didn't the bitch bring the pigs with her? Why had she come alone? Stupid, that's why. Stupid and weak.
"What are you going to do?" she asked the headlights. "Follow me to California?" She laughed: a harsh, nervous bark.
"Earl Van Diver is his name," Didi was saying to Laura. "An FBI agent. Mary shot him in the throat in 1972, at the Shootout in Linden. I think he found out who I am, but he doesn't want me." She nodded toward the van. "He wants Mary."
Laura had turned the heat up to high, but the BMW's interior was still uncomfortably cold, the wind shrieking in around them. There was nothing else left to do. Nothing except to keep that van with the broken taillights in sight. Sooner or later Mary would have to stop to get gas. She would get sleepy, hungry, and thirsty. She would have to pull off, sooner or later. And when that happened… what then?
Laura checked her own gas gauge. A little less than half a tank. If she had to stop first, Mary would pull on out of sight. She might turn off the interstate, try to hide until she was sure Laura couldn't find her again. But Mary was interested in only one direction, and one destination. Between here and there was over two thousand miles, and who knew what might happen in that terrible distance?
"I want out," Didi said. "I'm not going with you."
Laura was silent, her nose clogged with dried blood and her injured cheek turning blue-black.
"I swear to God!" Didi told her. "I'm not going with you!"
Laura didn't answer. She had watched a human being be murdered this morning. His blood was all over her purse, and the smell of death was in the car. She felt the horror of what she'd seen start to consume her mind, take her away from the task she had set for herself, and she did the only thing she could: she just stopped thinking about Edward Fordyce, and thrust the memory of his writhing body back to a place from where it couldn't easily be summoned. She had to think about one thing and one thing only: David, in the van fifty or sixty yards ahead. Mary Terror at the wheel. Armed and dangerous. Two thousand miles between her and a man who might or might not be Jack Gardiner.
"I want out! First gas station!"
They passed one in a few minutes. It was all lit up.
The van kept going, its speed constant at sixty-five.
Didi was quiet. She put her hands to her ears, to shut out the wind's scream.
You'll stop somewhere, Laura thought. Maybe ten miles. Maybe fifty. But you'll stop, and when you do I'll be right there behind you.
She glanced at the automatic lying on the seat where Didi had put it down. The grip had a dried smear of scarlet on it. Then she returned her attention to the broken taillights, and she brushed aside the nagging question of how she could possibly get David away from Mary Terror without the woman putting a bullet through his head.
Laura almost cried, but she held back the tears. Her face felt like leather stretched over hot iron. Tears wouldn't help the pain, and they wouldn't help get David back alive. She didn't need her eyes swollen up, that was for sure.
"You're crazy," Didi said. A last shot: "Going to get us both killed and the baby, too."
There was no reply from Laura, but the comment had worked itself in like a thorn. Laura concentrated on keeping a steady fifty yards or so behind the van. No need to spook Mary. Just make her feel nice and comfortable up there in her van with her two guns and the child she called Drummer.
He was going to grow up as David. Laura vowed it, over her dead body.